One of the formalities of many customer service calls is the prerecorded line now engrained in our heads: “This call may be monitored or recorded for quality assurance purposes.” The purpose underlying the business practice (known as “service-observing”) is obvious: call centers want to be able to monitor and/or record calls to help train their employees. The purpose behind the disclosure, however, is legal: while most states allow telephone calls to be recorded with the consent of one party to the call, twelve states require the consent of all parties.

Shortly before the Independence Day weekend, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit released its unpublished decision in Thomas v. Taco Bell, in which it affirmed the district court’s determination that the restaurateur was not vicariously liable for a franchisee association’s alleged violations of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA).

At the end of June, the FCC responded to a request from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and filed an amicus brief in Nigro v. Mercantile Adjustment Bureau to provide the agency’s views on the applicability of its regulations implementing the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA).

The Supreme Court this week continued its foray into the implications of technology for the Fourth Amendment with a unanimous ruling that the government generally requires a warrant before it can search a cellphone seized in the course of an arrest.

The Eleventh Circuit, in a decision earlier this week, held that subscribers have a reasonable expectation of privacy in historical cell site location information such that obtaining that data without a warrant violates the Fourth Amendment.

Recent years have seen an explosion in food-based litigation. Although most of the litigation has been brought by consumers, on Thursday the Supreme Court opened the door to more litigation among competitors when it ruled that POM Wonderful’s Lanham Act challenge against Cola-Cola was not precluded by the Food Drug and Cosmetic Act (FDCA).

Public outcry against plastic microbeads has reached a feverish pitch lately, with opponents decrying the non-biodegradable “plastic soup” that accumulates in waterways after microscopic plastics slip through screen holes at wastewater treatment plants.

Last week, the Federal Trade Commission released its long anticipated report: Data Brokers: A Call for Transparency and Accountability. The FTC is the latest federal agency to demand increased transparency for the biggest collectors of personal information.